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Label:The gold background of this painting sets the scene in the timeless, eternal space of heaven. The close relationship between the two figures suggests that the Virgin is interceding with her son Christ on behalf of humankind.

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Philadelphia Museum of Art Handbook (2014 Edition)

Robert Campin based this image on a now-lost Byzantine or Italian painting, which had been given by Pope Clement VI to Jean le Bon, future king of France, and kept in the royal Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Campin retained the model’s gold background, but rendered the figures with the realism for which Netherlandish painters were renowned, as evident in the depiction of Christ’s left hand, which appears to rest on the edge of the frame’s molding. This picture of the blessing adult Christ and the Virgin in prayer gave rise to the spread of this iconography in Netherlandish art. Carl Brandon Strehlke, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014, p. 93.

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